


Keeper

by infinite_wonders



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Oblivious Sousuke, Snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 18:17:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_wonders/pseuds/infinite_wonders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts off relatively small, with a quick hello here or a shared meal there, and somehow levels off with Sousuke barging into Makoto’s dorm-room at 10:00pm with his phone held in front of him like he’s making a conscious effort not to throw it against the wall.</p><p>Also known as that one where Sousuke and Makoto end up in the same uni together and Things Happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeper

**Author's Note:**

> SO it's SouMako Week and this is my contribution.
> 
> I THINK it's hits most, if not all, the prompts for the week. I don't know for sure though so please don't kill me if there are any misunderstandings or mistakes.
> 
> All that college stuff, to a certain extent, is based on my own experiences, i.e. the dorm lotto system, and the first two years of school being essentially the same for all the similar majors. We'll assume that Makoto's and Sousuke's majors are similar enough that it works.
> 
> Also, porn in Chapter 2. Sorry for that little teaser.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~sorrynotsorry~~

At the end of the day, Sousuke doesn't know how he got here, with his mouth full of cock and three of his fingers buried knuckle deep in Makoto's hole. But he finds that he doesn't particularly care-- especially when Makoto arches off the bed like that and cries out for Sousuke in that sex wrecked voice. 

He figures that he'll figure out the exact progression of events _after_ he's done nailing Makoto to the mattress.

As he finally lines himself and pushes in, as he revels in Makoto’s sweet, mewling cries, he mentally revises himself. He’ll review the progression after he’s done nailing Makoto to the mattress _multiple times_ , and also possibly on the wall and in the bathtub.

Everything else will keep.

****

Their first meeting in the seven long, long months since high school goes something like this.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” are the first words out of Sousuke’s mouth when he sees Makoto and another guy in one of the quiet corners where couples go to make out. Except, it looks a whole hell of a lot like Makoto’s being _backed into_ said corner and doesn’t actually want to be there, so Sousuke quickly follows it up with, “What the hell are you doing here?”

He _means_ , “what the hell are you doing here _with this asshole_?” or maybe, “Do I need to defend your honor because while you’re definitely big enough and strong enough to take this asshole out, there is a distinct possibility that you’re too polite to attack even a potential rapist.” Judging by the way Makoto smiles at him, the same ~~adorable~~ dumbass smile he’s had since the beginning of time itself, Sousuke is sure, he isn’t getting the hint. That much is only made extra clear when the other boy beams at him, as though he weren’t in a thoroughly uncomfortable situation, and says, “Oh! Yamazaki-kun, it’s been too long! I go to school here! Are you enrolled here too?”

Right.

Sousuke just sighs before turning to the dickweed, instead, because he’s moderately sure that the message will be received there, at least.

“Do I even need to repeat myself?” he drawls out as he insinuates himself inbetween, all disdain and raised eyebrows and solid menace built up on months, now, of training and bullying his cohorts into being better swimmers. 

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to, after all; the other guy, whoever he is, gets the idea, and Sousuke is a little grateful that atleast _someone_ does. Getting into an actual physical fight on school grounds is never easy to get excused, least of all in defense of the six feet of well toned, _capable_ muscle that is Tachibana Makoto.

In fact, the only way to get away with it is to not get caught, and the only way to do _that_ would have been to outright kill the creep off. Now, while Sousuke wouldn’t have particularly minded murdering the scumbag, he doesn’t think Makoto’s softer self would have been able to handle it and, frankly, hiding a body without any help would’ve been a complete pain in the ass.

So, with a cheerful smirk, he begins to lead Makoto away from the ‘scene of the crime,’ so to speak.

“Small world,” he says pleasantly, leading Makoto away with a palm planted warmly at the small of Makoto’s back as though he hadn’t just prevented something possible irreparably damaging to Makoto’s psyche, and the rest, as they say, is history.

(Here’s the thing about history that Sousuke doesn’t realize yet though; it has the tendency to come full circle, much like all the other important things in Sousuke’s life. When things do finally fall into place, it’s going to rock his world in a _spectacular_ way.)

****

So, Makoto is a piece of a past that Sousuke misses deeply, and it would silly to ignore the opportunity to reconnect, or maybe just regular old connect because Sousuke can’t remember a time when he’d befriended the guy.

They’d pretty much always just been on rival teams and Makoto had always just been on Sousuke’s periphery. Rin and Haru had taken up too much of his attention for him to spare any for anyone else, and Sousuke had honestly never cared enough about other people to see how Makoto might have felt about that.

Now though, as he watches Makoto pull a small fluffy animal out of the bushes, possibly a kitten, more probably a _squirrel_ , he finds himself reconsidering. He also finds himself wondering if it actually _is_ a squirrel, or maybe a small _raccoon_ , in which case Sousuke is going to have to make sure that Makoto doesn’t actually get bitten or, in the event that he does, that he actually goes to get the resulting rabies shots. Which, since when has Sousuke felt such instinctive protectiveness of someone else other than Rin?

Hell, he thinks as he stands by, it’d never actually even been this bad with Rin, who’d always been stronger despite being a complete and total crybaby. With Makoto, Sousuke finds himself very casually planning for fucking _contingencies_ and he doesn’t even know why. 

This calls for further investigation, he concludes, before making his way over to pry the possible _filthy, diseased rodent_ from Makoto’s hands.

****

It starts off relatively small, with a quick hello here or a shared meal there, and somehow levels off with Sousuke barging into Makoto’s dorm-room at 10:00pm with his phone held in front of him like he’s making a conscious effort not to throw it against the wall.

For the record, he _is_ and it’s taking everything in him to curb his destructive impulses. Besides, it’s not his _phone_ that needs to have sense beaten in and the _person_ currently pissing him off isn’t even on the same damned _continent_ , much less close enough to throw against a wall.

“Talk to him,” he grits out through clenched teeth, thrusting his phone towards Makoto even as he shoots an evil glare at Makoto’s roommate to send the stupid kid scurrying. “Get him to listen before I invent teleportation just to rip his fool head off.”

Makoto, bless him, takes the phone and doesn’t even ask.

“Hello?” he says, his voice automatically taking on _that_ tone, the one strictly reserved for kittens, kids, senior citizens, and people that piss Sousuke off, because for some reason he always assumes that Sousuke’s the one who’s going around upsetting people and not the other way around.

Honestly, it’s a little insulting.

It also doesn’t help that, the second Makoto realizes who’s on the other line, he practically melts into a puddle of affection. “Rin! Hey there!” he practically coos, as though Rin were the most adorable kitten he’d ever had the privilege of hearing meow from a distance. “How are you? How is Australia? Are you eating well? Are you making friends?”

It’s actually a little precious, how excited Makoto sounds to hear Rin’s voice, how he goes from 18-year-old boy to mother hen in no time flat.

Sousuke can hear Rin chuckling gently on the other side, voice made tinny over the breadth of an ocean and shitty speakers, as he reassures Makoto that yes, he’s still alive and in one piece, both physically and emotionally, and no he doesn’t need Makoto to come over . 

As heartwarming as it is, though, as much as it almost makes Sousuke forget all about his bad mood, that is not what he came here for, dammit. He came here to shamelessly use Makoto’s ability to make Rin do things, not to listen to him pamper Rin over the phone and let Rin continue to make stupid life choices.

Also, he did not walk into this room, actually here and within three feet of Makoto’s person, only to be ignored for a voice over the phone, beloved as it may be. He thinks that it’s only fair to kill two birds with one stone by doing what he does next.

“No,” he says, very, very calmly as he semi-carefully rips the phone away from Makoto’s hand, “Rin is being an irresponsible asshole and your job is to fix that, not to suddenly become a jewish grandmother whose only grandkid lives overseas and hasn’t been seen in ten years.”

It’s totally worth not losing his shit altogether just to hear Rin’s tiny, little cell-phone voice screeching at him to stop bullying Makoto, goddammit. Makoto’s surprised face is cute enough to be worth it too, and it only gets better when he slowly blinks and snatches the phone back from Sousuke in a move that’s, frankly, unexpected.

“What is Yamazaki-kun talking about?” Makoto asks with the practiced calm of someone too used to dealing with shit like this everyday, and off they go.

Sousuke sits back on Makoto’s bed with a grin as Makoto slowly but surely, _patiently_ , decimates Rin’s will to argue, as he takes Rin’s incredibly stupid decision to get some extra laps in every night in lieu of getting the proper amount of sleep and turns it on its fucking head.

Granted, he’s a lot nicer about it than Sousuke would have been, but Rin also tends to actually listen to what Makoto has to say, no matter how he says it-- and at the end of the day, Sousuke doesn’t care how it happens as long as it gets done.

Sousuke: 1, Rin: 0.

(Incidentally, this is no longer an investigation so much as it is wondering why he hadn’t pulled his head out of his long enough to become besties with Makoto instead of Rin. It would have saved him a whole hell of a lot of grief, even back then.)

****

“You should call me Sousuke,” he says to Makoto at one point, two months into what is possibly the single most comfortable friendship he’s ever had, “Yamazaki-kun is a bit of a mouthful on a good day, you know.”

He expects a bit of a fight about it; he’s surprised when he doesn’t get one.

“Alright then,” Makoto responds in a surprisingly calm manner from his spot next to Sousuke, in Sousuke’s bed, “Sousuke.”

Sousuke is actually a little bit disappointed because he had at least expected a bit of flailing and a lot of good mannered blushing, a little something to take the edge off of an otherwise shitty day. But, then again, it’s also gratifying in its own way to have Makoto so relaxed around him that he doesn’t react like he normally would.

“Ok then, _Makoto_ ,” he says decisively as he gently bumps their shoulders together and let’s the warm line of Makoto’s body against his own cheer him up instead, “tell me again, what part of this problem aren’t you understanding?”

His heart only stutters a little when Makoto fucking beams at him like he’s hanging the moon instead of helping him with school work, and Sousuke doesn’t have much time to wonder about that before he’s delving into the intricacies of college level calculus.

****

Here’s the thing. For all that Makoto is built a little like a brick shit house, he’s basically a tiny, baby puppy on the inside-- too easily trusting and too easily taken in by a kind word or gesture.

There are deep waters there, Sousuke knows, because there _has to be_. The other option is that Makoto is just that easy going, just that _kind_ , and the prospect of that is more than a little terrifying for someone who, for whatever reason, has decided to make his safety their top priority.

Someone like Sousuke, for example.

It’s with that (and nothing else, _really_ ) in mind that, when class sign ups come around for the next semester, Sousuke steals Makoto’s schedule and synchronizes their classes as much as their separate majors allow.

He’s thankful that they’re freshmen, because they both have to go through the same core classes for the first two years and matching up really isn’t as difficult as he’d thought it would be. Hell though, even if it had ended up being harder than hell, Sousuke would have probably done it anyway because that would have been more doable than what’s happening now.

Might as well make it easy, he thinks as he glares down the third would-be Makoto-harasser in as many weeks, might as well make it so that he doesn’t have to run three quarters of a mile in the 5 minutes between when he gets out of class and Makoto’s class ends, just just so he can be there to prevent shit like this.

Still though, he realizes, he would have kept on doing that, even if their scheduling hadn’t worked out-- because it’s always nice to see Makoto being quietly pleased that Sousuke is there to be his knight in shining armor, even if he doesn’t quite see it as such. 

Sousuke still doesn’t understand why he’s doing this to himself. But it makes Makoto happy, which makes him happy, which must mean that he’s doing _something_ right. Right?

Right.

“Let’s go,” he sighs out, grabbing Makoto’s hand and dragging him along when it seems like he’s starting to lag, “It’s 6:15. You haven’t eaten since noon. That’s not healthy.”

He feels a lot better about the whole situation when Makoto smiles at him, enough to ignore the way his heart skips a beat, _again_.

****

About two days after that, the dorm room lottos begin and that, well, that’s a whole lot harder than synchronizing schedules. There’s something like 8000 students in need of housing and only about 4000 decent rooms, which means that if Sousuke doesn’t want him and Makoto to end up in a shitty hovel or worse, in _off campus housing_ , leaving things to fate is absolutely not an option.

Thankfully, however, he knows just what to do, even if it leaves a bit of a bad taste in his mouth. 

He slams the nearest computer nerd into a wall and smiles sweetly at them, before ordering him to _make it work, or else_. He then proceeds to spend the rest of his day hoping and praying that Makoto never, ever finds out what he had to do to to make this happen. 

When everything is said and done, though, he finds it really hard to feel guilty, especially when the smartass he’d co-opted eventually turns away from his computer and says, “Oooh, you’re _that_ Yamazaki. I get it now.”

Sousuke just blinks. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asks, despite that foreboding feeling in his stomach telling him to think twice before asking.

The nerd just shrugs and very much does not answer the question. “You know, you only had to ask,” he says before smiling beatifically, “If you’d told me that this was for Tachibana, I would’ve just gone along with it. No questions asked. Everyone at school knows just how far you’ll go for him, you know. We’re all rooting for you.”

What the hell?

There must be _some_ sort of look on Sousuke’s face though, possibly a pathetic one even though that is totally not what Sousuke intends, because the nerd actually pats his shoulder, _sympathetically_. “He’ll notice eventually,” he tells Sousuke, and walks out before Sousuke can ask him what the _hell_ he’s talking about, like he hadn’t just illegally shuffled names around on the school system just to give Sousuke what he wants.

Sousuke, for his part, is left feeling dazed, like some truth is hiding away just out of his reach, like it’s at the tip of his tongue and ready to burst out of his mouth if only he could decode what the hell the kid meant.

Oh well, at least he’s got what he wanted, he thinks and wonders why it tastes like ash in his mouth.

****

When Makoto joyously asks him how he’d swung all this, he lies-- he lies through his goddamned teeth and with only a little bit of remorse, and puts Makoto in a loose headlock so he’ll stop with the questions.

“You’re amazing!” Makoto says to him, looking a bit like the sun rises and sets with Sousuke.

“And don’t you forget it,” Sousuke says in response and tries very, very hard not to preen or look guilty as he drapes his arm around Makoto’s shoulder. “Now come on,” he adds on as he starts to lead his wayward friend (?) towards his current dorm, “finals are starting soon and I wanna make sure that you’re fully comfortable with all of your subjects.”

****

The last of the fall semester passes uneventfully and and winter break starts without much of a fuss, minus a minor meltdown from Makoto when he finds out that his precious _Haru_ had caught a cold and _not told him_ until well after he felt better.

Still, it’s good. Everyone gets decent grades, at least enough that no one is unhappy, and then they spend a relaxing winter break back in Iwatobi. Makoto gets to catch up with Nagisa and Rei and Haru and Sousuke gets to Skype with Rin as much as he wants and watch Makoto being really, really happy.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Makoto goes out of his way to include Sousuke in everything he does, that he continues to maintain close contact with Sousuke even though Haru, his real best friend, is right fucking there.

The only real _downside_ to the whole thing is that Sousuke finds out, first fucking hand, that Nagisa is a bit of a…ok just, no. His angelic looks completely belie a soul as dark as Satan himself. If Sousuke has to hear _one. more._ thinly veiled comment on his ‘apparent homosexuality,’ he swears to fucking God that he’ll tie lead weights to the evil little bastard and let him sink to the ocean floor, friend of Makoto’s or not. 

Besides, Sousuke can’t understand where the hell all that animosity is even coming from because Nagisa is clearly fucking head over heels for Rei, and making gay jokes is totally not the way to get into four-eyes’s pants, ok? That’s just not how it’s _done_. But these are Makoto’s friends, and therefore not Sousuke’s problem to deal with or play wingman for.

“Ignore him,” Makoto whispers into his ear when he notices that Sousuke is about a second away from committing horrific acts of violence, his breath warm against sensitive skin, “he doesn’t mean it the way it sounds. I promise”

It’s _only that_ , Sousuke reflects as he suppresses a slight shiver-- and the warm hand that Makoto slips into Sousuke’s for a quick, gentle squeeze, that saves boring, little Iwatobi town from its first full-blown murder.

Suffice it to say, he’s almost stupidly glad when break ends and he and Makoto can just go back to their little bubble again.

****

They move in together, into their very own double, on a dreary day about a week before the spring semester actually starts. 

Unfortunately, Sousuke’s too busy focussing on the fact that Makoto is wearing what has to be the coziest sweater on the known planet and that he’s pulling off fucking _moe sleeves_ , to actually remember how everything goes.

Needless to say, their things gets moved in eventually and Sousuke definitely helps somehow, even if it’s only carrying heavy shit on autopilot.

It doesn’t matter though, because he figures that he might as well begin as he means to go on and there is a whole lot of dazed staring in his future if his recent habits are anything to go by.

He just wishes he knew why.

Granted, Makoto is really quite interesting to look at because how the _hell_ does someone who is six feet and ripped manage to look so small and harmless?

Still though, Sousuke can’t help but think that there’s some other impetus here, something else at work making him act like he does and making his heart beat a permanent tattoo onto his ribcage.

****

They take to living together the way that Sousuke had always thought they would-- they fall into place like they’ve been doing it all their lives and even their cramped little double can’t get in the way of how they synchronize.

Even other people occasionally comment because two guys their size? They should not be able to live in a room the size of a shoebox and come out with both of them intact. In fact, there are some people who are under the impression that, one day, Sousuke is going to walk out of their room with blood on his hands because he’ll have killed Makoto just so he can have that little bit of extra space.

The majority though, the people that know them or _of_ them, just roll their eyes a whole lot and sigh wistfully, like they’re waiting for something to happen and are holding out hope that it will come about sooner rather than later.

Sousuke doesn’t know what that’s about but he does know this. There will be no bloody murder in the room he and Makoto share, unless you can count Makoto’s screaming whenever they watch a scary movie. The difference, he thinks, is that it’s _their_ shoebox.

After all, live together with someone long enough, and it becomes easy to grab their hand and drag them to the shower, to grab onto their hips to move them away from the little mirror on their door, to drape themselves all over each other because it’s easier to conserve space and to keep warm when their heating goes out for the millionth fucking time _in the middle of January_ , Jesus fucking Christ.

He doesn’t care that they’ve only lived together for like, a week before all this starts. Hell, it only takes about 21 days to make or break a habit and him and Makoto have always been quicker than most, anyway.

Whatever.

“I swear to God, Makoto,” he says, reaching out to stop the other boy from leaving their room. “It’s like you don’t know how to take care of yourself.” He then proceeds to carefully wrap one of his scarves around Makoto’s neck.

“There,” he says, smoothing out the edges, “Now you can go outside and not have to worry about dying.”

See? Him and Makoto are totally fine.

****

It's two in the afternoon, and Sousuke's got beautiful, soft, roommate hovering over him with what looks like concern on his face, and he can only think that he should’ve worn the fucking scarves himself while he had the chance. Now, there are blankets, and it's sticky, and Sousuke has zero desire to go anywhere or even move a muscle because he feels like shit and the couch in the rec room is far more comfortable than people give it credit for. 

Makoto, though, seems to have different ideas.

"Sousuke, are you alright?" he asks, voice hushed and full of care as he places a warm hand on Sousuke’s forehead, because he is an angel from heaven and deserves every Sainthood ever created plus some new ones, besides.

Saint Makoto should totally be a thing; he’d be the Patron Saint of Loving Sousuke and No One Else.

There’s a part of him that’s clamoring, telling him that Something Important had just happened, but the majority of him is too effing miserable to care.

“Mmn..” he whines, very appropriately he thinks, and butts his head into Makoto’s hand a little in the hopes of more petting, maybe even some ruffling or some scritching. His life is terrible and the only balm he’s got is Makoto’s touch.

“You’re really just a big baby on the inside aren’t you?” Makoto chuckles, runs his nice fingers through Sousuke’s tacky, sweat sticky hair.

Sousuke tries to say ‘no’ and grumble a little, just to make a point because he is so, totally not a child dammit, but he barely manages to keep his eyes open long enough to huddle in to the best of his abilities.

“Come on,” Makoto says, voice still soft and sort of soothing as he uses his considerable strength to basically _haul_ Sousuke up like he weighs nothing. “Your own bed will be better for you than a public couch,” he continues on while Sousuke is making a valiant attempt at functioning and _failing_ , and proceeds to drag Sousuke back to their room.

It’s warm, and it’s wonderful and Sousuke sort of wants to bury his nose in Makoto’s neck and breathe him in until all of this goes away.

****

Sousuke falls asleep to Makoto’s sweet smile as he tucks him in and wakes up to total, damning realization.

Oh.

Oh _hell_.

****

**Author's Note:**

> Haha so I know there are a trillion mistakes in here already. I know that Sousuke wouldn't call Haru, Nagisa, or Rei by their first names. I know that some of Sousuke's mannerisms aren't totally accurate.
> 
> Tumblr is here [(x)](http://thetwowriters.tumblr.com)


End file.
